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FCC nails Google with $25K fine for dragging heels in StreetView probe

Updated: 9:30 A.M. PTFrustrated by Google's slow response, the Federal Communications Commission slapped a $25,000 fine on the company, alleging that the Web giant "deliberately impeded and delayed" its probe into the policies governing the StreetView street-mapping service.

The government started its investigation a couple of years ago after Google was found to have collected and stored payload data from unencrypted wireless networks as part of a project where it Wi-Fi-enabled Street View cars got sent around the United States and Europe. At the time, Google said this was inadvertent and that it was … Read more

Six things Nokia did to make the modern cell phone

It's been a while since we've been able to say this, but Nokia is wrapping up a very good week.

On Sunday, the company's flagship Windows Phone 7 device, the Lumia 900, finally arrived in stores. Praise from early critics, including CNET's Jessica Dolcourt, is high. So at this early stage, it appears that AT&T and Nokia managed to deliver on the early hype they generated last January at CES.

Of course, we'll have to wait to see how many handsets the company actually sells. It's entering a crowded and fiercely competitive … Read more

Nokia Lumia PureView mock shows WP 8, 41MP camera

If the Nokia Lumia 900 is any indication, Nokia's resurgence as a mobile player will hinge on distinctive design.

Take, for instance, the mock-ups that recently surfaced on IT168. Allegedly shots of presentation slides, the phone in question, the Nokia Lumia PureView, combines the 41-megapixel camera (really an advanced 5-megapixel camera) and Carl Zeiss optics of the Nokia 808 PureView Symbian phone that Nokia showed off at MWC, with Windows Phone OS.

I don't know about you, but I rather like the aggressively contoured design, even if it does remind me of SCUBA gear and jogging on the … Read more

Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare: Tools of the modern burglar?

Think twice next time you're planning to tweet about what a great time you're having on your vacation, thousands of miles from your empty, vulnerable home.

A survey of 50 convicted burglars in the U.K. suggests the tools used by today's modern criminals include more than just a black ski mask and crowbar. Seventy-eight percent said they'd used Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other social-media sites to target properties.

Also notable, nearly three-quarters of thieves have stepped into the 21st century and take advantage of Google Street View to case joints that might be worth robbing.

The home of Israel Hyman in Arizona was burglarized a few years ago, shortly after he tweeted road trip status updates like "preparing to head out of town," "another 10 hours of driving ahead" and later, "made it to Kansas City" to his 2,000 followers.

Bloggers like myself rarely worry about this sort of thing since I write every CNET post from home and have everything delivered to me via Amazon Prime. In case I didn't make it clear, I never leave my house. Never. I'm way too far behind on polishing my gun collection to go out. And you know what else I like? Booby traps -- they really put the fun in home ownership.… Read more

How to enable Reading View for Amazon Silk on the Kindle Fire

The Kindle Fire software update to 6.3 should be rolling out to you any day now, with new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.

One of the new features is a reading view, which allows you to format Web articles to look like an e-book, using Amazon's Silk Web browser. Reading view can make Web content easier to read without all the ads, graphics, and other distractions. Here's how to enable it:

In order for reading view to work, accelerated page loading must first be turned on in the Silk browser settings, if it isn't already.

When … Read more

ImageOpen is fast and portable

ImageOpen can serve as your default image viewer in Windows or as a lightweight alternative. This portable freeware is compact and launches quickly, even with large images, but it also lets you open very large images inside Internet Explorer, if you prefer. It sizes windows to images and offers a borderless display option. It also displays slideshows. ImageOpen can handle most image types, including less common ones like ICO and TIFF as well as the usual JPEGs and GIFs. It works in all versions of Windows, though XP and previous versions may require .NET Framework 2.0 or better. We … Read more

Google brings Brazil's Amazon forest to Street View

Most people don't ever get the chance to float down the Amazon River or walk through the surrounding forest and visit local communities. And for those who do, many parts of the area can't be visited because they are under the Brazilian government's protection with restricted public access.

Now, Google is making it possible for armchair explorers to experience the Amazon through its Google Maps' Street View feature. The Web giant announced today, on World Forest Day, that all of the images it has collected over the past several months of the Amazon's Rio Negro Reserve … Read more

Access and manage Favorites and Bookmarks with FavoritesView

NirSoft's FavoritesView is a neat bit of freeware that lets you save, edit, and access your Internet Explorer Favorites and Mozilla Firefox Bookmarks from one compact, customizable interface. You can choose your target folders and open Web pages directly from its toolbar. It can find duplicates and create HTML reports. Unfortunately, it doesn't (yet) accommodate Chrome, Opera, Safari, or any of the other other browsers.

As with many NirSoft tools, FavoritesView is portable freeware that opened as soon as we clicked the extracted program file. The program's interface is basic, with an up-to-date rendering of the classic … Read more

Nokia's 41-megapixel 808 PureView won't be coming to U.S.

Nokia's highly anticipated 808 PureView is getting a global release. The only issue: one continent will be left out.

According to the device's home page, the 808 PureView will not be made available to North America. It will, however, be available to customers in Europe and just about everywhere else around the world when it launches in May.

Nokia unveiled the Symbian-powered phone at Mobile World Congress this year. It includes a 1.3GHz processor and a 4-inch display. Its most appealing feature, however, is its camera, which packs a whopping 41 megapixels. The device, which will cost $… Read more

Dialed In No. 213: Wrapping up Mobile World Congress, not wires (podcast)

Now that Mobile World Congress is officially over, we get a chance to discuss the most newsworthy items that came out of the expo (hint: you guessed it, we ended up mostly talking about Nokia and the 808 PureView... oops). We also chat about the future surrounding other means of wireless technology, including Bluetooth 4.0, NFC chips, and Google Wallet.

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Stories Mobile World Congress awes and entertains The power of Bluetooth 4.0: It'll change your life Apple sends out invites for March 7 iPad event … Read more